


I SEE FIRE

by EchoThruTheWoods



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6173815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoThruTheWoods/pseuds/EchoThruTheWoods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their relationship is heating up... Yeah, yeah, okay. Vincent's grip on reality is tested. Veld realizes he may have ended up with more than one roommate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I SEE FIRE

**Author's Note:**

> Couple of naughty words.

Veld propped his left shoulder against the back door, balancing two overflowing grocery bags on his prosthetic arm while his other hand dug into his pocket for his key. One of these days he was going to hang the damn thing on a chain around his neck, like Vincent kept telling him. Might as well sign up for senior care while he was at it. And where _was_ the damn key? He couldn’t find it with a glove on.

He stuck the end of one finger in his mouth, caught the tip of his glove in his teeth, and pulled. A bag slid, tipped, and dropped a large cantaloupe onto his foot.

“Arghfuggahdammit!”

“Veld?” Vincent called from inside. “The door’s unlocked.”

Veld muttered something obscene and kicked the cantaloupe against the door.

The door opened. “What are you do--?” Vincent stopped, eyeing him as he stood there on one foot, awkwardly clutching two grocery bags, with a glove hanging out of his mouth and murder in his eyes.

Vincent blinked, ducked his head, and swept both bags out of Veld’s arms, turning to deposit the groceries on the table. Turning back, he gently pulled the glove free of Veld’s teeth.

“You should’ve stopped for a sandwich if you’re that hungry.” His voice wobbled just a bit, a grin dancing around the edges of his mouth.

“Bitch,” said Veld.

Vincent picked up the errant melon, put it on the table, and shut the door. He reached behind Veld and stuffed the glove into his back pocket. Slowly.

“You can take your hand off my ass now, Valentine.”

Vincent sighed. “You’re no fun.”

“Grope me later. I have to get dinner started.” Vincent in a playful mood was a rare animal, but there were only so many hours in the day.

“How much later?” said Vincent, stealing a brief kiss.

 “We’ll see. I have an exciting evening of paperwork planned, but afterward…”

Veld set him to putting the groceries away (he could put them where they actually belonged later), while Veld himself gathered ingredients and utensils, dodging around Vincent to get to the vegetable bin. Veld dropped a head of cabbage on the counter, and murmured, “Chopping knife?”

Vincent plucked it out of the knife block and tossed it. Veld caught it by the handle and saluted him with the blade.

“Vince, would you light the stove? And be careful, damn thing’s been acting up lately.” The old, gas-fired stove was probably a relic of the anti-Shinra crowd, but Veld liked it; it heated more evenly than electricity or coal, and--Wait, what the hell was he thinking?

“Never mind! I’ll do it.” Vincent Valentine and anything in the kitchen was a recipe for disaster. No one in their right mind would let the man near something flammable. Veld grabbed the box of matches off of the shelf. “Keep your hands where I can see them, you.”

Vincent rolled his eyes and stepped out of the way. Veld struck a match, set the box aside and turned the gas knob with one hand while the other hovered near the jet with the flaming match.

_FOOOOMPH!!_

The fireburst blew him backward, instinct throwing his prosthetic arm over his eyes. His head smacked hard against the wooden cupboard. There was crackling and a blaze of hot orange light, and a dark blur that rushed between him and the fire. Then hissing, an acrid chemical stink, and the light and heat went out, all before the echo of Vincent’s frantic “VELD!” faded from the air.

# # #  
  
Veld touched one finger gingerly to the charred remains of his eyebrow, and winced. It was probably red as hell; it certainly stung like it.

Vincent scowled. “It’s blistering. Leave it alone. Why the hell you haven’t got a Cure or at least a Heal…”

“They’re expensive. The burn ointment will do the job.”

Vincent smeared the pungent herbal paste over Veld’s brow and cheekbones. His hand shook; between that and the nearly translucent pallor of his skin, he looked worse than Veld felt.

 Veld caught his hand, heedless of the sticky ointment, and held it still.

“Stop fussing, will you? I’m fine.”

“You could have been killed!”

“Then you could sue the landlord.”

“Ha fucking ha.”

“You’d never get the security deposit back, though.”

“Goddammit, Veld! It isn’t funny!” Vincent rose abruptly, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. He pushed his hair back with both hands, stopped, closed his eyes. “You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t. You put out the fire, it was all over within a few seconds, and I’m fine. I’ve had worse.”

He eyed the old black stove. It stank of scorched iron and fire retardant. Foam dripped down the front of it onto the floor. He wouldn’t be cooking on it tonight.

Veld stood, trying on a smile that tugged at the singed skin around his mouth. “Let me just wipe this mess up, and then we can go out for dinner.”

“With your face like that?”

“I don’t care if you don’t.”

Vincent shook his head, but gave in to Veld’s urging. Veld mourned the loss of Vincent’s previous good mood, but you couldn’t have everything. They ate at the seafood place up the street, where the proprietor, looking suspiciously at Veld’s face, seated them at the table farthest from the door.

They went home the long way to walk off dessert. By the time they went to bed Vincent had stopped twitching at every little sound. Veld gave thanks for it.  
  
# # #  
  
Something shook him out of a sound sleep.

“Veld! Veld!”

“Wha’izzit?”

“The fire!”

“What?” Veld sat up, blinking hard. “Where?” Hadn’t they put it out hours ago?

“There, right there!”

Veld looked where Vincent’s hand pointed. Moonlight, the shadowy shapes of a dresser and a chair, a flutter of curtains at the drafty window. Veld looked at Vincent.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Vincent scrambled out of bed. “It’s there, it’s right there! We have to get out!” He reached for Veld’s arm and yanked, putting all his inhuman strength into it. Veld slid across the bed and over the edge, falling in a heap at Vincent’s feet. Vincent hauled him up and halfway out the door before Veld’s brain caught up with his body.

“Hold it!” He grabbed the door-frame with his left hand, metal fingers digging into the old wood. “Stop!”

“Veld!” In the wan light, Vincent’s eyes were wide and dark, shifting and tracking all over the room. “We’ve got to go, it’s spreading!”

“Vincent, look at me. There’s no fire. D’you hear me? There isn’t any fire.”

“Yes, there is, it’s right there, Veld, come on!”

“Would you just listen to me? There isn‘t--”

“Veld--”

“Vincent!”

“Veld, let’s go!” His grip on Veld’s wrist ground the bones together as he pulled Veld out of the doorway. Pain shot sparks up Veld’s arm to his shoulder.

“Dammit, Valentine, snap out of it!” Veld jerked backward, brought his free arm up and swung his fist, striking Vincent square on the jaw. In the next breath Vincent slammed him up against the nearest wall.

His pupils shrank, flashed from pinpoints to slits and back again. The edges of his face and body blurred, growing bigger, bulkier. A hand, longer and wider than it should have been, wrapped itself around Veld’s throat, cutting off his breath, and the growl that issued from between long, sharp teeth held barely-discernible words.

“We. Are. Leaving. NOW.”

He threw Veld over his shoulder, turned and leaped. The night shattered around him.

# # #  


When Veld’s head stopped spinning, he promised himself he would never get drunk again. Someone was moaning, and if it wasn’t him, he might even keep that promise.

He cracked an eye open. Brick walls, gritty ground, tiny stars of glittering glass scattered everywhere. Seeing them brought to life a myriad of stinging cuts up and down his bare chest and back. Oh, shit, he wasn’t drunk. He took a deep breath and turned his head.

Vincent crouched beside him, arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees, his face pressed against them, his body shaking so hard he damn near vibrated.

“Vince?”

“V-v-Vel--”

“Hey.” Veld put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s all right, spook. Look at me.”

Vincent raised his head. Strings of bloodied hair clung to his face, dotted with bits of glass. “I-I-I-c-can’t s-stop--”

“It’s all right. Don’t talk. Just breathe.”

“Vel-Veld? There’s--there’s no f-fire, is there?”

Veld sighed. “No, Vince, there isn’t.”

“I-I-I’m s-s-sorry, Veld, s-sorry, sorry--”

“Shut up, okay? Don’t say that.” Gods, what did one do when one’s partner flipped out and crashed through a window pane? They were lucky they weren’t both bleeding to d---He didn’t finish that thought.

Well, presumably one didn’t sit in the alley for the rest of the night, blood-streaked and near-naked.

“Vincent. Stand up. Come on.” He rose, pulling Vincent with him. “It’s cold. Let’s get inside.”

He wasn’t about to try climbing back through a broken window. Barefoot, he led Vincent up the alley, picking a path past the glass shards, and around to the front door. Which, of course, was locked.

They were going to have to break into their own place. Swaying on his feet, Vincent looked at the door as though it was a mountainside. He lifted a hand, let it drop. “Can’t.”

Veld gently moved him out of the way. “Never mind. If a simple lock is beyond my skills, I’m no Turk and never was.”

It took longer to find a makeshift lock-pick than it did to actually jimmy the lock. Grumbling, Veld finally broke a piece of wire off of the neighbor’s rickety fence and got to work, while Vincent sat on the steps, staring at nothing. Ten seconds was all Veld needed.

“We’re in. Now, where did I put that brandy?”

A drink, a shared shower and a change of clothes later, with Vincent cocooned by blankets in an overstuffed chair, Veld sat down to think. Vincent stopped shivering, and fell into the deathlike stasis that passed for sleep. Another blanket, tacked up over the broken window, kept out the cold, and Veld cradled a second glass of pricey but very welcome brandy while the wheels in his head turned round.

By the time Vincent returned to the land of the living--literally--some six hours later, Veld had his questions and his apology ready to go.

He carried two mugs of steaming tea to Vincent’s chair. Bleary-eyed, Vincent accepted one silently. His hands no longer shook; all of the little cuts had healed. He didn’t even have a bruise where Veld had punched him in the jaw. A man could be envious of that ability, if he didn’t know the heavy price it carried.

Veld opened his mouth to begin. Vincent cut him off.

“Say it.”

Veld blinked. “Say what?”

“ ‘You’re crazy. This isn’t going to work. Get out.’ ”

“You son of a bitch.” Veld thumped his own mug down onto a side table. “Is that what you think of me?”

“I’m just being realistic.”

“Realistic? Look, shit-for-brains, did I say anything like that? Did I even hint?”

Vincent winced. “No. But--”

“But nothing! What the hell is wrong with you? Just because you had a bad dream, you think I’d toss you out like last week’s garbage?”

“It wasn’t a nightmare, Veld.”

“Then what--”

Memory hit Veld hard in the back of the head. Old records, Vincent’s medical file, things that Veld had once had a right to know. And still did, in his opinion. “You were hallucinating.”

Vincent nodded.

Veld picked up his mug. The tea really needed a splash of something stronger. He reached under his chair and pulled out the brandy bottle. “Why?”

“Because--you were hurt. And I freaked. I couldn’t stop thinking I nearly lost you to a stupid thing like a malfunctioning stove.”

Veld shook his head. “After everything you’ve been through, all the danger, destruction and near-death shit you’ve endured, that pushed you over the edge?”

“Veld, you can’t apply logic to this. The rational part of my brain wasn’t in charge.”

“I could tell.” Veld hesitated; this was unfamiliar territory. “You really saw flames in the bedroom?”

“Saw them, heard them, smelled them. If I’d touched them, it would have burned. I thought you were in mortal danger. I was terrified.”

And Veld had responded with irritation and anger. He was an idiot. “Vince, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you, it was the wrong thing to do.”

“You couldn’t know.”

Vincent drank his tea in silence while Veld thought it all through.

The blurring of Vincent's body, the throaty snarls…Veld had to ask.

“What, uh…what was in charge?”

“Old things.”

Only Valentine would have corporeal delusions. Veld shuddered. “I thought they were under control.”

“They are. Mostly. Intense emotion can jar them loose, give them agency. It’s part psychosis, part defense mechanism.”

“I’ll say. You weren’t acting like yourself.”

“Yes, I was,” Vincent said. “It’s an aspect of myself that doesn’t come out often, for which I’m very grateful.”

It had been years since Veld had read those files, but a couple of things had stood out. “You used to take medication for that. Right?”

Vincent squirmed. “When I was young, yes.”

“And now?”

“Drugs don’t work anymore. My brain chemistry is…different. Now it’s just my will keeping them contained. I can manage, but a sudden shock, an emergency, or great physical exertion might complicate things.”

Veld had definitely missed a memo somewhere, old records notwithstanding. He was twice an idiot; he’d let this go when he should have been asking questions, demanding answers. Not that it was all his own fault. Valentine was a master at misdirection.

“You should have told me. Not last night. A long time ago.”

“I thought you knew,” said Vincent, looking everywhere but at Veld.

“Valentine, if you lie to me I’ll kick your ass from here to Junon. You thought I’d throw you out, didn’t you?”

“…Yes.”

Anger rose again. Veld knocked it down and sat on it, reaching deep for patience. “This is your home as much as mine. Can you keep them under control?”

“Most of the time, yes.”

“Will you warn me if you can’t?”

“I’ll try. Yes.”

“Well, that’s sorted, then.” Veld sat back and drank the last of his tea. “I guess you can stay.”

“Don’t joke about it.”

“Who’s joking?” He had a sudden thought. “You did say intense emotion?”

“I did.”

“Physical exertion?”

“I…said that.”

“And ‘mostly’ under control?”

“Something like that.”

Veld poured another half-mug of brandy. “Well, that’s going to make certain recreational activities interesting from here on, isn’t it?”

“Assuming you still want to do them.”

Veld grinned. “Try me.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I just realized this is the third time these dudes have had a crisis in the middle of the night. I really need to let them get more sleep ;)


End file.
